As the world turns
by Mirandos
Summary: Answer to SSSS-forum fic exchange, challenge by Elleth. The grandmother Hotakainen and a storytime with the three kids we know and love.
A/N This is the first part of the story I wrote for the SSSS-forum's Fic Exchange, Elleth's prompt to be precise. I apologize: it is a couple of hours late, it is unbetaed and, well, it is missing two thirds of it and I have no idea will this even do as a challenge answer: I kind of took parts of the prompt and ran with them. And now I'm editing the second version of it. Well... hope you enjoy?

...

 _\- Nuku, nuku nurmilintu... Väsy, väsy västäräkki..._ Lauha sits against the headboard of her bed, stroking unmoving little Lalli's hair, trying to wake her youngest grandchild from his trance-like state or at least to calm him down enough to finally truly fall asleep.

... She's trying to calm down herself as well, she has to admit. The humming, buzzing, groaning sense of _wrong_ keeps her awake just as efficiently as Lalli's condition.

Stairs of the attic are creaking and soft, shuffling steps of woollen socks come closer to her small alcove next to the kitchen.

\- Onni, she sighs. - It woke up you as well?

Onni nods quietly, fiddling with his sleeves. Always so wary, always so careful.

\- Come here, sweetheart. There is still a little room left on the bed, just enough for lanky teenager to fit in.

Onni climbs on the other end of the bad and looks worriedly at Lalli.

Lalli just keeps staring blindly at the logs of the wall. There is no sign that their smallest one even noticed his cousin's arrival.

\- They are close, Onni says simply. It is a question and statement at the same time.

\- Only beasts, Lauha answers quietly - And they are on the other direction, behind the...

\- Grandma? Onni?

Of course, Tuuri has woken up as well. There are times when Lauha almost believes that she, too, has the gift of Seeing. Or it might be that she's just so in tune with her brother and cousin that she feels their distress as keenly as her own.

\- Come in, sweetie.

Tuuri waddles in from the little doorway. She has a bedful of blankets and pillows with her, and they end up under her small feet, almost tripping her.

\- Lalli forgot his pillow, Tuuri huffs with the voice reserved for Very Important Matters. She drops the bedding on the floor for the time being and moves to pull a blanket over Lauha and Lalli by her side.

\- Grandma, move your head a bit. Lauha obeys and lets Tuuri to cram a pillow between her shoulderblades and the headboard. The thought is very sweet in itself, but Lauha knows she will have horrible krick in her back in ten minutes if she tries to stay like this. So when Tuuri is tucking up her brother she takes it off and drops it next to her.

(Suddenly, a flash of sentimentality floods over her: oh, how she misses the mornings she woke up when Aarne rose to feed the chickens, their two little girls sleeping between them. Her little ones.)

\- C'mere, Tuuri, Onni smiles and destroys all his sister's good intentions by rising to kneel on the bed and picking her up, slinging her in a wide arc to end up between their grandmother and the log wall. Tuuri giggles, but thanks to Nukku-Matti, she's too tired to get excited. She just crawls to her place between Lauha's arm and side and burrows there, a bundle of still sleep-warm child against her. Onni spreads a blanket over her as well, arranges his long legs under it and jams the last blanket between his back and the backboard of the bed, staying upright to mirror Lauha.

... Well, at least nobody will be cold tonight even if the spring hasn't been exactly warm.

And then she realises that something is different: Lalli doesn't stare blindly at the wall anymore but he is watching his cousins' antics. Tuuri's laughter has woken him back to this world, away from the vortex of nightmares. Lauha is relieved: she had been genuinely worried for a moment.

\- Hi, Tuuri rises her head from Lauha's shoulder to greet him.

\- ... hi.

\- Good morning, sleepyhead!

\- Not "good morning" but "goodnight", Onni scolds gently. - Now everybody is comfortable and we can perhaps all go back to sleep...

\- Goodnight then! Tuuri hits her forehead back to Lauha's shoulder, suddenly and painfully, and pretends to snore. Lalli smiles a bit and burrows in more comfortable position against her side, like a squirrel in its nest.

It might be a good time for a bedtime story, something to make all the children to calm down and take their attention away from the creeping, squirming knowledge of _wrong_ in the temple of almost everyone present.

\- Have I told you about the time when me and great-grandfather met this woman who counted blueberry flowers?

\- Yes! Tell about it! - No. -... Onni just makes himself more comfortable and smiles like a conspirator. Lauha flashes him a smile as well, but for a different reason. She knows , that no matter how old or how mature he tries to act, Onni still likes storytimes.

\- Tell the story, grandma, please!

\- Now, where should I start, Lauha pretends to ponder _._

\- There's the good blueberry place in the mainland, on the road to old Hollola, do you remember that place?

\- Yes! There are strawberries on the hill close by, too.

\- Once, when grandma was a little girl, we made a trip to old Hollola...

...

After Johannes Hollola had pulled his back, Saga had turned to their neighbours for help: they couldn't afford to leave the old lands of Hollola unused, not when they had three teenagers in the house

Surprisingly, it had been Veeti, sullen teenager Veeti, who had volunteered to help. It might or might not have something to do with Tanja Hollola, Tuuli had snickered later. Maybe with the twins as well: Teija and Lauri were only two years younger than Veeti and the boy was desperate for company that was at least almost his age.

Howewer, before the week was over, Lauha had missed her cousin (and favourite climbing tree) so badly, that the additional day it would take to retrieve Veeti had seemed impossible to wait. Or maybe it was the thought of Adventure that was making her feet itch: in that aspect she was her mother's daughter, in Saku's humble opinion.

...

They sat still on the rowing boat: Saku listened to the voices fom the forest before he dared to row closer.

\- Now wait a moment Lauha, so I can pull the boat up the shore.

It was heavy still, even after all these years he had spent with a hoe and axe in his hands, but in the end he managed to pull it on the shore to secure it.

\- Now you can jump out. Take daddy's boots with you. Lauha climbed up to the bow of the boat and...

\- No! ... jumped down. Dear lord, he should have been more precise with his instructions.

\- Lauha, dear, do not jump from the highest place you can find! The boat might've knocked over and you would've snapped your ankle when you landed!

\- Okay! Saku sighed inwardly when pulling his boots on: always, always Lauha had to do something like this: she'd run in a rocky terrain, climb on every roof there was and demand the right to light the fire to the large bread oven. If Saku had had any idea how many heart attacks he'd have before she was seven years old, he would have had second and third thoughts about ever having a child. Or, to be honest, perhaps not: a mere thought of life without Lauha and her endless streams of questions, demands and mere presence felt empty, dull and simply not possible. He was just as helpless in front of her pleads and demands as he'd been in front of Aino from the moment they had met. And didn't Lauha know it: in child's cunning she hadn't asked her mother to allow her to come along to this trip, she'd begged it from him when he'd been planning it with Tuuli and Aino.

...

 _\- But Lauha, dad and Veeti will return by nightfall._

 _\- But I want to see Veeti! And Teija and Lauri and Tanja too! Dad, please take me with you!_

 _\- ..._

 _\- ..._

 _\- ... We could spend the night at Hollola's, Saku offered._

 _Aino's mouth thinned._

 _\- Meeting other children would do her good, Tuuli nodded along, winking at Lauha._

 _\- And Veeti probably misses you as well._

 _Aino rolled her eyes. She knew when she was losing._

 _\- Mom, pleasepleasepleaseplease..._

 _\- Okay, you can go. But you stay at Hollola's overnight. Do not even think about trying to return before dusk!_

...

Saku rose up.

\- Okay sweetheart, now we are done. Once more, he fixed the straps of his backpack and checked the rifle on his shoulder.

\- Do you remember which way to go?

\- This way! Without hesitating, Lauha marched towards the little path behind the willow bushes and Saku followed her, proud of his daughter's good memory. Pity there was no one with them he could point it out to.

...

Slowly, the midday started to turn towards afternoon.

\- Lauha, sweetie, I believe it might be a good time to us to stop for a moment and have a bite. Find us a good place to sit, would you?

\- Okay!

-... but don't go so far I can't see you!

\- Okay! ... Everything was "okay", especially when she had no intention to listen, to _remember_ what she had been told. At least there was a magpie guffawing somewhere close: everything was safe for the time being.

\- Here! Lauha hollered proudly next to a fallen pine, and before Saku had anything to say on the matter, she'd climbed on the trunk and planted herself on it, happy as a squirrel.

... Well, if there were going to be resin stains in her clothes, they were there already and there was nothing he could do about it. He, too, sat down but next to the tree trunk instead, put his rifle down and pulled the rucksack off his back.

He gave the loaf of bread to Lauha to hold, followed by carefully wrapped bundle of smoked fish. Waterbottle he left to his side, as well as the glass jar full of fil and jam. He started to make a neat little piles of everything a couple of meters away, next to upended roots of the tree. A spoonful of fil, one quarter of small fish, a crumble of bread. Only when he was done, he started to cut the bread for the two of them.

\- What did you do?

\- Shared what we have with us. There might be someone who would be glad to have a bite.

\- But there is just the two of us! And Veeti, when we return, Lauha added.

-... Just in case.

\- Oh. Okay!

... Thank god she didn't ask more.

...

Saku has always been a careful person: he has taught himself to apologize whenever it might have been needed, ('Next you apologize for existing' his father had sighed when he'd been young) and kept his voice low when speaking, in company, in a church, at sauna, under the northern lights. He used to triple check the oven before leaving home, and looked five times before crossing the street.

So nowadays, he makes a cross over his heart before doing something even remotely dangerous (like touching an axe), he apologizes from thin air and thanks for every little bout of luck.

And after hearing giggling from the foliage, after seeing faces and hands and _shapes_ dancing in lazily lapping waves in the midday sun, after nightmare creatures in flesh in front of him (after the _fall of mankind_ ) he has learnt, the hard way, that nothing is truly impossible.

So he bows in front of the unknown, asks and thanks and apologizes and chants poems ( _prayers)_ , even if there were no one to hear them.

 _..._

 _Rits._ Something moved in the tussocks behind the twin pines, making Saku's heart to stop for a second. Then it started to race and he grabbed the rifle.

\- Lauha. Sit still and stay silent.

... He shouldn't have taken Lauha on this trip with him, he shouldn't have given up in front of her begging, not that easily, he should have left his baby girl home...

... Please, let it be just a bear. Oh the cruel, cruel irony of life: he, a cityboy born and bred, was praying to meet a bear at the spring when it would probably be hungry and grumpy.

A blackbird sang it's spiraling song somewhere nearby: Saku's heart was more likely to be buzzing than beating right now, as he tried to listen any additional sounds. His hands were sweaty and he really wanted to wipe them on his trousers, but he didn't dare to let go of the rifle.

The branches shook. There was something...

A squirrel jumped from one tree to other and another followed it. _Tsk-tsk!_ The went in their spring heat.

Another noise. A...oh, sweet Jesus, Mary and Joseph, a vaguely _human_ noise. And a woman, or something that at least looked like a woman, stepped from the shadow of the trees, wiping the sprigs methodically, like she was searching for something. She had a blue shawl on her shoulders. A dark brown braid peppered with grey hung over one shoulder and her skirts were wide and brown.

Saku had learnt that the... _nightmares_ which had started appearing to their lives, after that horrible autumn when the whole world had gone upside-down and straight to hell, spread an unescapable miasma of horror around them, like a fart in an elevator.

This woman did not give away that air of _wrong_ around her. Still, a stranger in these islets and shores where most of the survivors knew each other, was highly suspicious: if this woman had wandered here from somewhere far, if she'd lost her mind, like he'd heard happening somewhere around Ristiina...

\- Hi! Lauha had relaxed and done her own decision. He should have told her to keep quiet: the fact that woman seemed and felt unthreatening didn't mean mean she was safe.

\- What are you doing? The woman straightened her back and Saku realised he'd still been holding his rifle. A bit embarrassed he put it down and checked the safety.

\- I'm counting the blueberry flowers, she answered and smiled. She had faint lines around her eyes and deeper ones around her mouth; they made her eyes twinkle. So natural and happy the answer had been that it took a moment for Saku to register it's insanity. She didn't seem psychotic or prone to attack, but clearly she wasn't in command of all her faculties. Perhaps, hopefully, she'd just had a slight nervous breakdown...

\- But there are so _many_ of them, Lauha breathed in awe.

The woman looked thoughtfully around her.

\- Yes, there are. It is a good spring for them.

\- How many there are? Oh, Lauha, sweetheart...

\- I'm not sure yet, the woman said thoughtfully. - They are still in the midst of blossoming.

And Lauha nodded at that, like she had been given a definite answer. Saku made a decision: no matter how addled she seemed to be (please, let her be just addled, not dangerous), she was in genuine danger, especially after the night fell. And even if he left the rifle standing against the roots, he still had a knife on his belt.

\- Would you join us for a meal? We do not have anything special, as we are traveling but still, it's something.

\- And there's Aunt Tuuli's blueberry jam in the fil! Lauha chirped happily, bouncing on her perch. The woman seemed to think for a moment.

\- I'd be happy to. She collected her wide skirts and sat on the pine needles next to him and Lauha jumped down to join them, holding a piece of bread on her mouth.

They didn't really have that much: only for a day and then some, because they'd planned to leave early and be back home before dinner. Still, Saku didn't hesitate when he cut the loaf, not even his thoughts: he knew what hunger felt like. Also, he knew that even if the Hollola's had had a sparse spring, there would always be something for the children's trip back home. He could do without till home if needed.

Saku put most of the smoked whitefish in their newspaper wrap on the piece of cloth the bread had been wrapped in and handed the makeshift tray for the woman. He put the water bottle in the middle of their small circle and moved the fil jar between the woman and Lauha. There were two spoons in the almost untouched jar. The third, meant for Veeti sat in the bottom of the backpack and there it would probably stay.

Her skirts were in a good condition, Saku noted. She wasn't completely on her own or perhaps she had started her madman's task just recently.

\- Where are you coming from? she asked curiously, breaking a small piece of bread.

\- From the island over there, Saku answered in a roundabout way, gesturing with his hand.

\- We're on our way to pick up a family member from neighbours...

\- We're picking up Veeti! He's my cousin, Lauha informed in an important manner.

\- Where are you coming from..?

\- From Metsola! She smiled even widera and the dimples (in her age!) on her cheeks deepened.

\- We are going to Hollola, Lauha slurred behind a mouthful of bread and fish.

\- Is it close to it?

\- Lauha, not with your mouth full!

\- Hollola is on it's lands, sweetie.

Okay, not only addled, she is lost as well.

...

The woman ate like a bird, broke a bit of bread, took a pinch of fish. As Lauha practically forced, she ate two spoonfuls of fil, smiled and thanked.

\- It was delicious, she said and wrapped the fish back on their paper, and folded the bread slices back in it's cloth.

\- Please, do help yourself, Saku urged. - We have enough for three.

It wasn't a lie, not technically.

\- Thank you kindly, but I believe it is time for me to continue with my task. And it would be wise for you to continue your journey. The night falls quickly this time of year.

Saku became alarmed. He should act quickly before she would disappear on them...

\- Wouldn't you come with us? If Metsola is close to Hollola, it would be safest to travel together.

She started to laugh. The sound of her mirth was soft and low, calm and comforting in strangely familiar way.

\- I have all the safety I need here.

\- But you'd meet Veeti! And aunt Saga and Teija and Lauri and everyone!

\- Thank you sweetheart, but I believe I shall meet them later anyway. She reached to stroke Lauha's hair.

\- But we have a rifle with us and you have nothing and later somebody could escort you to Metsola... Saku tried to argue.

\- The thought is kind, but I don't need an escort, Saku. Thank you for the meal, but I really must encourage you to continue. She rose to her feet and bowed down to place a kiss on Lauha's soft hair.

\- Goodbye, Lauha.

\- Goodbye, Saku. She reached to touch his cheek, and her hand was soft and warm and strong.

\- My blessings to you both.

\- But missus...! Surprisingly quickly she slipped away behind the twin pines where she had come from and Saku scrambled on his feet and dashed after her.

\- But you'll be all alone! No sign of her. Saku peered around, tried to listen for a sound, for anything that might give away _where on Earth she had gone?_

\- Lauha, did you see where she went?!

She shook her head. Panic started to rise in Saku's throat. Where had she disappeared?

\- Dad, I'm afraid, she said quietly.

\- Can we just go?

\- But Lauha, sweetheart, we can't leave her here on her own!

\- But she told us to keep going.

Oh dear lord, how low the sun was! They really should continue soon. If there were any... creatures, natural or unnatural, close, they would start to wake up soon.

\- Lauha, pack the backpack. I'll search for a moment.

All too soon Lauha was next to him, their large backpack on her small shoulders, reaching almost her knees.

\- Dad, please.

She held the rifle with both of her tiny hands and that shook Saku's mind back to the order, arranged his cogs and gears back to their proper places. They really must leave: if something were to wake up and start trailing after them...

\- Give me the backpack, dear. His hands shook from nervousness.

\- And the rifle. He arranged it on his shoulders, checked the security and threw it on his right shoulder.

Lauha took a hold of his left pinky.

\- She said was going to be okay. Will she really be?

Saku looked at his little girl. What to tell her in a world where danger always loomed in the horizon, where it might be following their very footsteps right now?

No, dad has no idea. He knows nothing, he can't do anything: he couldn't even stop an addled woman from running away to almost certain death.

There is nothing safe in this new world, but still, Lauha is a child and everything in him screams that she should stay a child as long as possible and that means she should be able to trust adults around her, not to worry about them.

And the woman had seemed so sure of herself. Perhaps she too... heard things like he did, perhaps she had somebody looking for her.

\- She said she would be, so we should believe her. Daddy was just overworrying again. He fixed the rifle on his shoulder and took a better grip on of his daughter's hand.

They started to walk towards the narrow path.

\- And Lauha, he looked for a stern tone, - never touch the rifle again. It is dangerous for children.

\- But dad! Veeti _practises_ with it! Why can't I?

\- When you are as tall as Veeti, we will discuss it again.

\- Daa-ad! Aunt Tuuli said I should start soon!

Oh dear, Tuuli again. When she got a thought on her head, there was no stopping her: only Eino ever had any luck with talking her down.

Hopefully Lauha would forget it by the time they'd reach home.

...

\- Nobody ever saw the woman again, Lauha ends her story.

\- Never could we find out where she was from or how she knew our names.

\- The Lady of the Forest herself, Tuuri breathes, her eyes huge, like every time this story is told.

\- Perhaps. No one knows for sure: there were still people without home in those early years, refugees and vagabonds, lost and heart-broken. But that would explain why we were the only ones to meet her: great-grandfather saw things in those years that no one else did and I saw them with him. And oh, how great-grandma worried! Lauha chuckles.

\- Like the time he carried me to the top of a pine, have I told you about that?

\- Tell us! Both Tuuri and Lalli demand in unison, though both of their eyes are starting to droop.

\- Could as well. It was beginning of summer, one of the hottest summers grandma can remember and I was helping with weeding...


End file.
